Hank & Cindy

Well, I wanted to post a picture of Big Hank since I posted one of Miss P. It proved to be difficult. First, it's hard to get a good picture of him, cause he's so wiggly--particularly when attention is directed at him. This is not the greatest picture, but you get a sense of the Essence of Hank.

The last few days have been wasted in being sick--something flu-like though it's obviously not flu season. It's quite odd (and extra sweaty) to have a fever when it's 97 degrees out.

I recovered enough to go to AD's last night to watch fireworks. But I left early after getting annoyed with some hipster attendees and their sardonic appreciation of the band Kansas. Don't these people understand how predictable they are, or how they limit themselves when they insist on filtering every thought and emotion through a screen of sarcastic irony?

But I am and was overreacting and knew it and that's why I left instead of getting bitchy. I'm extra irritable because lately every simple thing I try to do seems to turn into a huge hassle. Example: tomorrow I'm supposed to leave for Maine, just as TS Cindy should be hitting. Every single flipping time I try to fly out of this town, there's some kind of big storm and the airport shuts down.

But I'm determined to get to Maine. I need my vacation very badly. I'll take a bus the whole way if I have to.

However: Cindy, Impending Storm of Death, has caused my evening class to be cancelled, which is good. Now I can hit on a few topics I didn't think I had time for. (Work? What work?)

Topic A: In a feverish wooze, but in need of kitty litter, I biked to the Ghetto Wal-Mart over the weekend. On the way back, on St. Thomas Street where the projects were demolished and there's now just empty lots on both sides of the road, there was a badly decayed dog carcass in the gutter. Decayed enough so that you could see its ribs, but there was still flesh and hair attached. His face still there in a death grimace. Looked like a pit mix. I wonder if it was dumped there after a dog fight or whether it was hit by a car. Either way, the point is that I live in a city where animal carcasses are left to rot in the street.

Topic B: Sandra Day O'Connor. Oh screw it, it's too demoralizing to talk about, other than to note that when I was living through the Reagan and Bush Senior administrations they both seemed like a couple of right-wing nutbars. I had no idea how right-wing nutbar you could get. Now Reagan, who appointed the thoughtful and moderate SDO'C, seems nearly moderate himself in retrospect.

Topic C: The UD. I was going to leave him alone, but the other night he jokingly accused me of being antisocial, and it made me want to show him how very social I can be in the right circumstance. Or spank him. Or something.

Topic D: Being sick. I was sick and hot and every aspect of physical being was a source of low-grade suffering. I was trying to reread All the King's Men but I couldn't focus my attention on it. Ended up somehow reading an essay by Geoffrey Wolf about his heart valve surgery. Not a good thing, since I have a somewhat defective valve that may someday be more-than-somewhat defective and occasion the same type of surgery. I hope not for a long, long time. Because I am phobic about many aspects of being sick, hospitalization, surgery, or just generally not being physically free and mobile.

I'm very, very claustrophobic (the main reason I hate to fly). I'm phobic about being tied down or restrained in any way (no bondage for me, thanks). I'm terrified of being intubated. I'll do almost anything to avoid puking. I have a great terror of choking or not being able to breathe-this is why I've never gotten braces even though my mouth is a mess--I went to the orthodontist to get braces put on, they strapped my arms down, tilted the chair way back and started putting tubes and things in my mouth and I completely freaked out. I was convinced I was not going to be able to breathe and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. The doctor suggested valium. I'm afraid of being sedated. So I still have crooked teeth and an overbite.

When it's time for me to go, I hope I have a Tootie Montana kind of death, with minimal time spent in hospitals until then.

Anyway, if you're reading this on the day of posting, wish me luck or light a candle or say a prayer to the gods of tropical storms and of airline travel that I get the hell out of this third-world tropical shithole tomorrow, so that I can gain the space and perspective necessary to keep loving it.